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India News Network Digest    Tue, 15 Mar 94      Volume 2 : Issue 205

Today's News Topics:

   U.S. considering arms deal to enforce Pakistan nuclear ban
   Woman drowns herself, 3 children, in village well
   First homes submerged in controversial Narmada Dam Project
   Tribe in India lives by prostitution
   AIDS explosion feared in India's prostitute villages
   Lehman Bros. names Menon to lead India efforts
   Allergan, India Venture : Products to be produced in India
   India's Muslims fear new physical threat; militant Hindu nationalism,
                        discrimination solidify group's sense of alienation

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Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 10:46:10 -0500
From: chadha@thumper.bellcore.com (Ritu Chadha)
Subject: U.S. Considering Arms Deal to Enforce Pakistan Nuclear Ban

#1  U.S. CONSIDERING ARMS DEAL TO ENFORCE PAKISTAN NUCLEAR BAN

           NEW YORK (AP) _ The Clinton administration is proposing that
Congress lift its ban on military aid to Pakistan to induce that
country to stop producing nuclear weapons materials, The New York
Times reported.
           The plan would allow Pakistan to take possession of dozens of
F-16 fighter planes it already has paid for, the Times reported in
Sunday editions.
           The planes were never delivered because of a Congressional
roadblock that bans military aid to Pakistan unless the president
can certify the country doesn't have nuclear weapons and isn't
trying to develop them.
           The Clinton administration hopes to stem the proliferation of
nuclear weapons in South Asia, where India and Pakistan have gone
to war three times since India gained independence in 1947.
Pakistan was originally part of India, but gained its independence
later that year.
           Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said in November that
her government would not give up its nuclear program, despite
pressure from Washington.
           The Times, quoting unidentified U.S. officials, said the current
proposal implicitly recognizes that Washington has failed to
prevent Pakistan from developing nuclear-weapons capability and now
is trying to constrain the country's nuclear program.

-------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 10:47:52 -0500
From: chadha@thumper.bellcore.com (Ritu Chadha)
Subject: Woman Drowns Herself, 3 Children, In Village Well

#2  WOMAN DROWNS HERSELF, 3 CHILDREN, IN VILLAGE WELL

           NEW DELHI, India (AP) _ A woman distraught by frequent quarrels
with her mother-in-law drowned herself and her three children in a
village well in southern India.
           The 32-year-old woman left her home after another round of ``the
usual tiffs'' with her husband's mother and went straight to the
well, Press Trust of India reported today.
           She pushed her third and second child into the well and then
tied her legs and her oldest child's legs together and jumped to
her death, the report said.
           Their names and the children's ages were not given.
           The drownings occurred Saturday near the temple town of Madurai
in Tamil Nadu state.

-------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 12:04:05 -0500
From: chadha@thumper.bellcore.com (Ritu Chadha)
Subject: First Homes Submerged in Controversial Narmada Dam Project

#3  FIRST HOMES SUBMERGED IN CONTROVERSIAL NARMADA DAM PROJECT

           NEW DELHI, India (AP) _ The water rising behind the world's
largest dam project began submerging homes in western India today,
but residents refused to leave, said an environmental group that
opposes the Narmada River project.
           ``The consequences will be serious,'' the Save the Narmada Group
said in a fax to The Associated Press. ``The first house started
getting submerged early this morning. The water level is rising
every minute.''
           The floor of the lowest house in the village of Vadgam, about
500 miles southwest of New Delhi, was under water and about 50
homes were threatened. Surrounding farmland also has been flooded.
           The Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada is the first stage in what
is planned as the world's largest irrigation and hydroelectric
project, involving a network of 30 major dams and 3,000 smaller
ones stretching from southeast of Delhi all the way to the Arabian
Sea in the west.
           The nearly completed Itaipu hydroelectric project on the
Brazilian-Paraguayan border now is the biggest.
           Critics say the Narmada project will uproot 1 million people
from their ancestral homeland, flood 600 villages, destroy 865,000
acres of forests and nearly as many acres of fertile farmland.
           The government says the project will provide drinking and
irrigation water to 40 million people and promises new housing for
the people living in the areas it plans to submerge.
           ``It is a strange situation here. The water level is rising, but
the residents are just refusing to leave,'' Sripath Dharmaadhikari,
a spokesman for Save the Narmada, said in a telephone interview
from Baroda.
           In the past, residents vowed to die rather than abandon their
homes.
           Environmentalists began campaigning against the project in 1987.
A 1992 review by the World Bank, which financed part of the
project, said the government had not done enough to resettle
villagers who would lose homes.
           Angered by the report, India's government declined further
assistance in the project. The World Bank had already spent $280
million and was to give $180 million more when India halted the
aid.
           The water level of the Narmada started rising at the end of
February after authorities closed the dam's sluice gates to start
storing water.

-------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 15:10:06 -0500
From: chadha@thumper.bellcore.com (Ritu Chadha)
Subject: Tribe in India Lives by Prostitution

#4  TRIBE IN INDIA LIVES BY PROSTITUTION

           MORENA, India (AP) _ When a girl from the Bhediya tribe reaches
puberty, her nose is pierced with a decorative pin. It is her
initiation into prostitution.
           Before she takes her first man, who pays a high price for the
young virgin, the pin is removed at a tribal celebration.
Afterward, she is sent to a city, usually Bombay or Calcutta, to
earn her living.
           When she becomes pregnant, the tribe conducts a marriage
ceremony, with this difference: The bride gives her wedding vows to
a one-rupee coin, not to a man.
           The Bhediya of Madhya Pradesh state are one of at least a dozen
tribes and low-caste communities that live entirely from
prostitution, like the Rajnat in neighboring Rajasthan. Few of the
men work, beyond soliciting for the women.
           Bhediya tribesmen were highway robbers for centuries until the
British colonizers classified them as a ``criminal tribe'' 200
years ago and hunted them down.
           Seeking protection, they asked wealthy landowners for the right
to live on their property. In exchange, they gave their daughters
for the landlord's pleasure.
           The fair-skinned, comely girls learned singing, dancing, all the
arts of the courtesan, and were in great demand. They also learned
that there was money to be made in the cities.
           ``There was no stigma,'' said Ram Sanehi Chhari, a Bhediya who
has spent 45 years trying to reform the tribe. ``It was a matter of
pride for a girl to enter the profession. She was doing it for the
welfare of her family.''
           The largest houses in Morena have been paid for with the
earnings of the Bhediya women.
           Others looked down on the Bhediya. Chhari recalled his mother,
from a different tribe, being angry with his father and calling him
a Bhediya as if it were a dirty word.
           ``You eat from the earnings of a woman,'' she would say with
contempt.
           ``That got it into my head that what the Bhediya is doing is
wrong,'' Chhari said.
           He is persuading some of the young to adopt new ways.
           Fifteen months ago, the government gave him money for a boarding
school. His face creases with delight as the 150 pupils, aged 6 to
12, sing patriotic Indian songs and chant slogans against crime and
drugs.
           All are fatherless children of Bhediya prostitutes.

-------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 15:09:30 -0500
From: chadha@thumper.bellcore.com (Ritu Chadha)
Subject: AIDS Explosion Feared in India's Prostitute Villages

#5  AIDS EXPLOSION FEARED IN INDIA'S PROSTITUTE VILLAGES

           NANDLALPURA, India (AP) _ In this village down a three-mile dirt
track from a busy highway, every woman is or was a prostitute and
every girl child probably will become one.
           It is how people of the Rajnat tribe survive these days.
           Generations of Rajnat were traveling minstrels and dancers,
dressed in brilliant turbans and swirling skirts of rainbow colors,
welcomed in the sandstone fortresses of the maharajahs and queens
who ruled the western desert.
           Then Indian royalty slipped into history, television put
wandering folk troupes out of business and the Rajnat traded
footloose make-believe for seamy reality.
           Naina, who is 8, dreams of being a doctor. More likely, she will
become like her sister Usha, a chubby-cheeked 13-year-old who
approaches visitors with a seductive amble, fluttering eyelashes
and pouting lips reddened with betel juice.
           One day, Usha stood with her head down coquettishly as an aunt
struck a deal with a man who had arrived on a motor scooter. She
sent them into a family bedroom.
           ``The girls brought up in this atmosphere are soon putting on
rouge and lipstick and are eager to earn their own money,'' said
Kusum Jain, a social worker who visits Nandlalpura to encourage the
use of condoms.
           After she managed to persuade village women that unprotected sex
was dangerous, their way of promoting condom use was simple: Charge
men who refuse them the equivalent of $2.25 instead of $1.60, the
standard fee.
           If India is an AIDS time bomb, as scientists believe, Usha and
Naina are among the fuses. India has tried to curb prostitution
along its highways and spread the word about condoms, but with
little success.
           ``What can we do? We have to earn a living,'' said Shyama, the
eldest sister, brushing Naina's hair outside their three-room home
of mud bricks. ``The choice is dying of AIDS or dying of
starvation.''
           Shyama, 30, was a prostitute for more than 15 years in the
village and Bombay.
           ``I have six sisters and one brother,'' she said. ``For years I
supported them. Now that I am too old, they look after me.''
           Most men in Nandlalpura are unemployed, except for ferrying
customers in jeeps from the highway. They pass the time playing
cards and drinking locally distilled liquor. Dust-caked children
play as in other villages. The prostitution is part of life.
           Hundreds of Nandlalpuras just off the major highways of India
serve the sexual appetites of truck drivers and men from towns
close by, in this case Jaipur and Ajmer.
           The government tends to ignore them because of their
reputations. Engineers laid power cables to nearby villages four
years ago, but bypassed Nandlalpura.
           Bhawani Shanker, who heads a social organization that conducted
a two-year study of village prostitution, said the Rajnat and four
other tribes operate 144 sex centers in Rajasthan state that range
from villages to small towns.
           He said at least 20,000 women were involved in the sex trade in
the state's eastern provinces, the area his study covered. Most
have never heard of AIDS or seen a condom and more than 2,000 are
HIV-positive, meaning they carry the AIDS virus.
           Highway prostitution is one of the biggest factors in the spread
of AIDS all across India. The World Health Organization has
identified India, Thailand and Taiwan as ``the smoldering
volcanos'' of AIDS in Asia.
           In 1986, shortly after the first AIDS case was discovered in
southern India, a study in Bombay indicated that fewer than 1
percent of the city's 100,000 prostitutes were HIV-positive. The
figure has grown to 35 percent.
           Socially conservative India has been slow to heed the warning.
Many Indians believe AIDS is a disease of the decadent West and
does not threaten a country where contact between men and women
outside marriage remains taboo.
           Boy children are preferred elsewhere in male-dominated India,
but in Nandlalpura and other sex villages, they are neglected,
scruffy and ill-fed. The girls wear clean frocks, their hair is
brushed and braided, and, said Ms. Jain the social worker, they
``are always given better food.''
           Nandlalpura has no medical clinic. Few of the children attend
the nearest school, in a village a mile away, because they are
teased by classmates and treated badly by the teachers.
           Women in the village can earn middle-class incomes of 5,000
rupees, about $160 a month. In the last few years, some have begun
saving to buy farmland for their families.
           ``In the old days, once in a while a prince would fall in love
with one of the tribal girls and keep her in the palace in return
for a piece of real estate for her family,'' Shanker said.
``Otherwise, these people have been nomads.''

-------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 05:59:50 -0700
From: RAJESH <RAJESH_H1@sfov1.verifone.com>
Subject: Lehman Bros names Menon to lead India efforts

#6  LEHMAN BROS. NAMES MENON TO LEAD INDIA EFFORTS

DOW JONES NEWS (DJ)
   NEW YORK -DJ- Lehman Brothers Inc., a unit of American Express Co.
(AXP), has appointed M.V. Sreedhar Menon as managing director with
responsibility for business development and senior relationship
management in India.
    He will be based in New York.
    Prior to joining Lehman, Menon served as deputy president, member
of the board and head of the AEB Branch Network at American Express
Bank, as well as chairman of American Express Bank International.
    In a press release, Lehman said it has plans to establish an office
in Bombay this year.

#7  ALLERGAN, INDIA VENTURE : PRODUCTS TO BE PRODUCED IN INDIA

DOW JONES NEWS (DJ)
   IRVINE, Calif. -DJ- Allergan Inc. (AGN) said it and Nicholas Piramal
India Ltd. formed a joint venture to manufacture and market Allergan
and Nicholas prescription ophthalmic products and contact lens care
products in India.
    In a press release, the company said under terms of the agreement
between Nicholas and an Allergan unit, Nicholas will manufacture the
products on a contract basis for the joint venture at its Indore, India
manufacturing facility.
    Nicholas Piramal India Ltd. is a member of the Piramal Group, a
Bombay, India-based industrial conglomerate that manufactures health
care products, textiles, electronics and automotive components.

#8  INDIA'S MUSLIMS FEAR NEW PHYSICAL THREAT; MILITANT HINDU NATIONALISM,
                        DISCRIMINATION SOLIDIFY GROUP'S SENSE OF ALIENATION

THE WASHINGTON POST   (WP)
Byline:   John Ward Anderson
Credit:   Washington Post Foreign Service
03/12/94
     As religious riots swept India more than a year ago, Khursid
Ali was dragged from his family's two-room apartment in a Muslim
neighborhood here by a dozen men, including police officers, and
thrown in jail. He was held for nearly a month, he said, all the
while maintaining he had done nothing wrong.
     When he was finally released from prison, Ali said, he went to
reclaim his job as a gardener with the city, "but they said, `You
have no right to live in this country, let alone seek a job here.' "
He still has to make court appearances in connection with the cases
against him - he has been charged with arson and assault - and when
he does, "all the people there are Muslims. There are no Hindus.
When I see that, I think the only choice my children will have is to
leave India."
     The rising popularity of militant Hindu nationalism and a
lukewarm response by the government have left India's 110 million
Muslims feeling more insecure than they have in decades. Outnumbered
by Hindus 7 to 1, Muslims say they have long faced discrimination in
housing, employment and other areas. Now, they say, they fear the
threat of physical violence.
     There have been deadly clashes between Hindus and Muslims in
the past. But Muslims say that since the destruction of a
16th-century mosque in Ayodhya by Hindus in December 1992, the
government has been reluctant to confront the most fanatical Hindu
nationalists or to protect the Muslim minority. Observers believe,
for example, that 90 percent of the roughly 1,500 people killed in
last year's Bombay riots were Muslims, and that most were shot by
police.
     "Never have I felt so hopeless as I do today, when Muslims are
just not wanted in this country," said Rafiq Zakaria, a Muslim
author and former member of parliament from Bombay. "There is a
whole campaign of hate going on. A systematic effort is being made
to show how intolerant, how regressive ... how almost primitive and
barbaric Muslims are."
     Despite their large numbers, Muslims have never been fully
integrated into modern Indian society. As invaders who toppled Hindu
dynasties centuries ago, and who in modern times are blamed for the
partition of India at independence and creation of the Islamic state
of Pakistan, Muslims today are viewed by many Hindus with distrust
and suspicion.
     Their status today is roughly comparable to that of African
Americans in the 1940s and 1950s. Despite a constitution that
guarantees equality for all, discrimination is widespread at least
partly because the Indian government tolerates it. As Sunday
Magazine, a popular news weekly, said in a cover story on Muslims,
"Here is a community that has been deliberately kept out of the
mainstream."
     According to recent statistics, while Muslims account for about
12 percent of India's population, they fill less than 4.5 percent of
government jobs and 7 percent of the seats on the nation's high
courts. They receive about 2 percent of industrial licenses issued
by the government, 3.7 percent of available financial assistance and
about 5 percent of loans approved by public-sector banks. Of the 528
members of the Lok Sabha, the more powerful house of India's
bicameral parliament, 23 members - or 4.4 percent - are Muslims.
     In the private sector, only one of India's three largest
companies - Tata Steel - has a Muslim on its board of directors.
     It is almost pointless to debate which group is at the bottom
of the barrel in a country with so many people of all religions
living in desperate conditions. In fact, many of the poorest Muslims
interviewed for this story said that materially they were no worse
off than a lot of Hindus. But, as educated Muslims pointed out and
statistics seem to indicate, Muslims confront the toughest barriers
when trying to break into India's emerging middle class, which by
some estimates is as large as the population of the United States.
     Some Muslims said their community had contributed to its own
plight by following fundamentalist leaders more interested in
religious issues than in economic and social advancement. An example
frequently cited was education. Many Muslims keep their children out
of school, and thus the community's literacy rate lags far behind
other groups'.
    "It's absolutely true that Muslims have not put a lot of stress
on education, because even if a person is educated, they are not
going to get a job because the job scene is totally dominated by
Hindus," said Mohammad Arif, 28, who runs a clothing stall in Delhi
with his father. "Hence, there is greater emphasis on getting into
trade when you're younger, and because of that, Muslims are pushed
back even more."
              Muslims are not the only group that feels
disenfranchised in India. The society is based on a hierarchical
caste system that ranks Hindus according to job and social status -
the highest class being Brahmin, the lowest being untouchables.
     Recently, Muslims and lower-caste Hindus set aside their
religious differences in India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh, to
forge a political alliance to fight for their common advancement.
They stunned the political establishment by winning state elections
in November, but it remains to be seen whether similar coalitions
can be formed in other states or nationwide.
     In the past, politicians have deliberately fueled religious
bigotry to alienate Muslims and keep lower- and upper-caste Hindus
under the same banner. That traditional political alignment has been
remarkably simple to achieve in a society where Hindus and Muslims
do not mix on a social level, even though they conduct business
together and often live next door to each other.
     That Hindus and Muslims still live together at all is in a
sense remarkable. By some estimates, more than 500,000 people were
killed in Hindu-Muslim clashes when Britain left India and the
country was partitioned in 1947. India and Pakistan subsequently
fought three wars, and Pakistan continues to support Muslim
insurgents fighting a bloody civil war against Indian troops in
Kashmir. There have been communal riots in India's cities almost
every year since 1980, and there are smaller-scale religious clashes
somewhere in India almost every day.
     "There's danger lurking everywhere, but I'm not afraid," said
Idris Bhai, 45, a Muslim tailor from Delhi who said he lost many
Hindu customers after the 1992 riots following the destruction of
the mosque at Ayodhya. "I know that if I'm attacked, I will fight
back. I'm only going to die once, so I'll retaliate."
    In some cases, the violence has been used to fuel Hindu
fundamentalism and create an atmosphere where misinformation,
misunderstanding and intolerance of Muslims thrives. One of the
myths that has gained widespread acceptance, for instance, is that
because Muslims are allowed as many as four wives and rarely
practice family planning, they will soon outnumber India's 740
million Hindus.
     In fact, at current growth rates, it would take centuries for
Muslims to outnumber Hindus, and even then, there would be so many
people that the country could not sustain them.
     Nonetheless, "there is a misimpression that Muslims are
breeding like crazy," said Titto Ahluwalia, chairman of MARG,
India's top market research and polling company. He cited a February
1993 MARG survey of 481 Hindus in Bombay in which 58 percent agreed
that "the Muslim population is growing at a much faster rate than
the Hindu population."
     Such myths are propagated in large part because of the lack of
reliable information to counter them. The Indian government collects
data on Muslims and Hindus for its census but refuses to release the
findings, claiming it would violate the country's secular character
and encourage divisiveness. In the absence of such data, however, it
is often difficult to compare the two communities and measure
improvement or backsliding in the status of Muslims.
     "Unless you highlight the disparities and identify gray areas
where intervention is necessary, then most probably your intention
is to leave the disadvantaged where they are and not bring them into
the mainstream," said Aijazuddin Ahmad, a professor at Delhi's
Jawaharlal Nehru University and an expert on Muslim demographics in
India.
     Another issue that has fueled deep resentment among Hindus is
Indian law that allows Muslims to be ruled by their holy book, the
Koran, rather than civil codes that Hindus must obey. For instance,
Muslims can obtain divorces quickly and without official sanction,
and then do not have to pay alimony, while Hindus must go through an
expensive and time-consuming legal process.
     Hindus want a uniform civil code for all citizens, claiming
separate personal laws for Muslims amount to appeasement and
pandering. Muslims see it as a matter of religious freedom
guaranteed by the state. Moderate Muslims complain that the entire
issue diverts attention from more important matters.
     "The Muslim leadership has only educated the community on
emotional issues - like the personal law and Urdu {language
rights}," said Asghar Ali Engineer, chairman of the Center for Study
of Society and Secularism in Bombay. "When they stick to emotional
issues, they strengthen the hand of Hindu communalists and make
Muslims look fanatic and violent."
     In the aftermath of last year's communal riots in Bombay, there
has been a call from many Muslims for more moderate leadership. A
few grass-roots groups have sprung up to bring Hindus and Muslims
together and reduce tensions between them, which could bring a
greater measure of equality.
     "The only way solve this is to stop the need for revenge, which
is a huge task," said Sushoba Barve, a social worker who has
organized discussion groups between Hindu and Muslim leaders in
Bombay. "But now, for the first time, Hindus and Muslims are willing
to acknowledge there is a long-standing, deep feeling they have
against each other, and they're talking about it, which is a first
step."
     Results of a survey based on 481 personal interviews with
Hindus in Bombay in February 1993:

...........................................     PERCENTAGE WHO AGREE

Hindus should not employ Muslims in their
      businessess or homes............................    13

Muslims should not be allowed in the armed forces.....    20

Hindu and Muslim cultures are so different that
      they cannot really live together ...............    28

The Muslims were justified in reacting angrily to the
      demolition of the  Ayodhya mosque...............    44

The underworld is controlled by Muslims...............    49

Muslims are fine craftsmen and skilled artisans,
      without whom our arts and crafts would suffer...    51

Muslims believe that all non-Muslims are their enemies    53

Muslims must reject their fundamentalist leaders......    58

The Muslim population is growing at a much
      faster rate than the Hindu population...........    58

Indian Muslims consider themselves Muslims first
      and Indians later...............................    64

Violence is not the way to settle matters between
      Hindus and Muslims..............................    74

Until a uniform civil code is established,
      there will never be national integration........    78

SOURCE: MARG, India's principal polling company

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End of India News Network Digest
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